This page catalogs all the prints in Yoshitoshi‘s series ‘Fūzoku Sanjūnisō (風俗 三十二相)’, or ’32 Aspects of Customs and Manners’ or ’32 Aspects of Daily Life’ (to translate the title accurately), or ’32 Aspects of Women’ (as it is often more usually known now).
The series dates from the very end of Yoshitoshi’s career, when he was about forty-nine years old. It thus dates from the same period as his well-known masterpieces such as his great series “One Hundred Aspects of the Moon” (1885-1892), and “New Forms of Thirty-Six Ghosts” (often called simply “Thirty-Six Ghosts”) (1889-1892).
This page is a preliminary page, using large images from another Yoshitoshi site; none of the individual title kanji, translations, etc have been checked. Nonetheless, in giving all the titles in English, we hope it is a useful interim resource until we can do a full job on this common, well-known, and wonderful, series.
Technical details
- Dates: 1888 (2-11)
- Size: Ōban
- Signed: Unread
- Seals: Taiso (3 different forms)
- Publishers: Tsunashima?
- Block carvers: Wada Hori Yū (all except 14, 18, 21, 23)
Previous cataloguings
Most notably, it is the subject of a reference volume:
John Stevenson, "Yoshitoshi's Women: The Woodblock-Print Series Fūzoku Sanjūnisō", University of Washington, Seattle, 1986, 1995
It is listed in Keyes’ thesis (but see below for a complication):
Roger. S. Keyes, "Courage and Silence: A Study of the Life and Color Woodblock Prints of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi 1839-1892", Cinncinnati, 1982
where it appears as series #503; he listed all 32 prints in the series. Also listed in:
Eric van den Ing, Robert Schaap, "Beauty and Violence: Japanese Prints by Yoshitoshi 1839-1892", Havilland, Eindhoven, 1992
where it appears as series #63 (pp. 139-140), and:
Shinichi Segi, "Yoshitoshi: The Splendid Decadent", Tokyo, Japan, 1985
where it appears on pages 92-95, color plates 56-57 (and notes to them, pp. 146-147).
They are ordered the same as on the series’ own title page, and also in both Stevenson and van den Ing and Schaap (which copy that order); that is, chronological by the period of the image. However, we use the Keyes numbers to identify the prints (which are basically ordered chronological by printing date, as throughout his listings where there is not assigned numbering).
